The Rages Rag Newsletter of Rail Action Group, East of

www.rages.org.uk Issue No. 55 - October 2012 www.facebook.com/RailActionGroup

Further Saturday Services between Dunbar and Edinburgh It has been announced that enhanced rail services will begin increased job and investment opportunities. from Sunday, December 9 to allow thousands of passengers to “These service enhancements will encourage new enjoy better connectivity and new journey opportunities. passengers to travel by rail for commuting educational and Operated by ScotRail, the new winter timetable will see four leisure, opportunities and help current passengers to get out new Saturday services introduced between Dunbar and earlier, stay out later and get around more frequently.” Edinburgh to match the weekday service. Steve Montgomery, ScotRail’s managing director, also said: Starting on Saturday 15 December 2012, these will be "The new timetable provides real benefits by improving departing from Edinburgh Waverley at 10:08, 12:08, 14:08 and frequency, journey times and connections on routes across the 16:08 with returns from Dunbar at 11:04, 13:04, 15:04, 17:07. country. All trains will stop at Musselburgh. "It underpins our focus on delivering more services and At the time of announcement, the Transport Minister Keith encourages more people than ever to switch to rail." Brown said in respect of all the enhanced services in Scotland: The full press release showing enhancements across the "Rail travel in Scotland is on the rise as more people come to country can be seen at: realise the benefits of letting the train take the strain. http://transportscotland.gov.uk/news/New-services-for-winter- "The Scottish Government has an absolute commitment to timetable rail services and to doing all we can to encourage more people Tom Thorburn, RAGES Chairman, said: "... this is terrific on to the trains with all the benefits that entails – less news from First ScotRail that Dunbar will be getting these new congestion on the roads, a reduction in carbon emissions and Saturday Services."

MVA Consultancy Invited to Community Council Meetings

MVA Consultancy, who are instructed to do the Stag 2 frequency that other towns and villages in East Lothian Study for East Lothian and Councils to bring a enjoyed. local rail service between Edinburgh and Berwick upon Tweed It was disappointing to note that Network Rail were not with the re-opening of East Linton and Reston Stations, were progressing the development of Foggo's Yard in Dunbar to invited to attend the September meetings of both Dunpender allow more car parking, but station parking at East Linton could and Reston and Auchencrow Community Councils. alleviate pressure in Dunbar from Stenton rail users. The potential Dunpender of including rail A representative from MVA Consultancy attended information in Dunpender Community Council on 6th September. He promoting East Welcome to this issue of The Rages explained that the reason for the second STAG was to explore Linton as a Rag, which we publish regularly. It is alternatives to rail services as this had not been fully covered in tourism the main means of communication with the earlier STAG. Allison Cosgrove, Transport Spokesperson, destination was our members. outlined the economic, environmental and social benefits to also mentioned. East Linton that re-opening the station would bring, stressing With the Inside Issue 55: the amount of traffic that would be taken off the A199/A1, with development of Our 13th AGM - Page 2 the John Muir particular reference to the Sheriffhall roundabout and EC Managers at Berwick - Page 2 Oldcraighall junction which were already at capacity during Way, many News Snippets - Page 3 peak hours. Available parking at East Linton station would also walkers come to New Web Site - Page 4 assist with parking at Drem, the nearest station, where car the village and parking has now overflowed into the village causing this could be a The editor invites contributions congestion. useful addition to which should be sent to him at the Bus services to and from East Linton were also discussed. the tourist “Published by” address at the foot of There are three current providers, two on the Dunbar to experience. page 4. Edinburgh route and one on the Dunbar-North Berwick route. Some services were better than others, but none had the Go to page 3 1 RAGES 13th Annual General Meeting This year’s annual general meeting was held on 12 Minister for Transport had been interviewed on Reporting September in the West Barns Bowling Club when twelve Scotland that morning. members attended. The Treasurer presented the audited accounts which were Chairman, Tom Thorburn, welcomed all present and read accepted. out a list of apologies. In his membership report, Russell Darling reported that the The minutes of the 12th annual general meeting were membership currently stood at 152, which was 10 less than this accepted. time last year. Only 85% of last year’s members had renewed

Tom Thorburn then spoke on the year’s activities. their subscriptions, disappointingly less than this time last year. Within a month of last year’s AGM, the long awaited MVA This percentage represents a loss of 26 members compared with Consultancy Edinburgh and Newcastle Rail Service last year’s 3, but since the last AGM we had recruited eight Consultation was published. Sadly, this study did not cover all new members. However, at our last committee meeting, it was the requirements that would have shown a greater patronage decided that he should write to this year’s lapsed members from the existing and new stations covered by the study, i.e. urging them to re-join and had been done. Visit Scotland and Community Councils were not contacted to Reston members again outnumber all other station areas, but gauge their passenger number and comments. Due to this, the along with Dunbar the two together still represent well over subsidy required to provide the Edinburgh to Berwick local half of our membership at 60%. service with East Linton and Reston re-opened would be in the RAGES now has eight community councils as members: order of £2 to £2.5m. RAGES committee members met with Haddington and District; Cockenzie and Port Seton; North Berwick; West Barns and District; Dunpender; Reston and rd the Transport Minister, Keith Brown MSP, on 23 November to Auchencrow; ; and, recently, Town discuss the MVA Consultation and were somewhat shocked to Community Council. East Lothian Conservatives; the Queen find out that as the study was not to STAG 2 level and that a Margaret University; and Sustaining Dunbar are also corporate further study would be required to bring it up to the required members. Russell noted that he had had an enquiry from status. However, the Minister was positive to our plight and Dunbar Community Council. visited East Linton, Reston and Eyemouth to see for himself the The use of banker’s orders as a method of subscription benefits that the local rail service will bring. A Parliamentary payment went well again this year. debate was held on 21 st March which the committee and The e-membership card was continued as a form of members attended. This, very pleasingly, had total cross party acknowledgement of receipt of a member’s subscription. Of support for our local service. the 144 members, 114 had their acknowledgement in this Persistence pays dividends so they say and everyone was manner - a saving of stationery and stamps. delighted when First ScotRail agreed to run a late night As usual four Rages Rags were published during the last Saturday service to Dunbar from 17 th December 2011 which year and the editor was grateful to the committee who take it in also calls at Musselburgh. This service is bedding-in well and turns to distribute them. aas been extremely busy during the Edinburgh Festival. The Electronic Newsletters continue to be sent on an ad-hoc group continues to press for this service to be extended to basis to all members for whom there is an e-mail address. Berwick. Web Site Report After some nine months of requesting a meeting with East Coast to discuss: the shortcomings of services which were The web site was updated regularly and occasionally a new brought about by Eureka; the requirement for a mid morning member is gained via the web site membership form. service to Kings Cross; ticketing; trains by-passing Dunbar; car However, after 12 years of free web site hosting by British parking/charges etc., we finally met with Karen Boswell, East Telecomms, our ISP, they are starting to charge for the service. It has been decided to move the hosting to a local company and Coast Managing Director, on 19 th March in Dunbar. Sadly very Russell is in the process of setting that up. He is also taking little positive actions came out of this meeting other than being the opportunity to re-design the web site. Once complete, an told we should request these during the new franchise announcement about its re-launch would be made via an e-rag. consultation. Following on with the MVA additional study, the East Election of Office Bearers Lothian Council hosted meetings thrashed out agreement where Having being advised by the Chair that all committee the two Councils, East Lothian and Scottish Borders, would members were willing to stand again, the meeting proposed that jointly pay for this study to bring it up to STAG 2 status. the Committee be re-elected en bloc. The committee continues: to meet our MSPs to argue the However, the Treasurer indicated that he would undertake case for further investment in Rail; to also press our aims with his role until 31 March 2013 and would then wish to stand Railfuture; to attend relevant rail conferences. The quarterly down. meetings continue with SEStran, with these have been hosted by Councillors McLennan and Veitch at East Lothian Council. General Discussion At the end of his report, Tom thanked the Committee for During the discussion, Russell Darling noted that the their work during the year. profile of re-opening Haddington station had been raised again A vote of thanks was also proposed to Tom for continuing with the Haddington ward councillors. It was considered that a to carry out his excellent work as Chair. public meeting might be helpful to gauge interest. Other Reports It was confirmed that RAGES was now on Facebook. [Ed - the Facebook symbol now features in our masthead along with Allison Cosgrove, secretary, reported on submissions for the a QR code (for smartphones) pointing to our web site] East Coast Main Line franchise. She also noted that the 2 Community Council Meetings From page 1 Reston and Auchencrow service. Community Council Chairperson’s from Coldingham, St. The September meeting of Reston and Abbs, Eyemouth and members of the public all spoke of the Auchencrow Community Council was also attended by MVA need of Reston station and the benefits it would bring to East Consultancy. including commuting to work, college, university Councillors from Scottish Borders Council who had and what Berwickshire has to offer for the visitors to this area. arranged for MVA to attend the meeting were present along As Vice Chairman of Reston and Auchencrow Community with local Community Councillors from Eyemouth, Council and Rages, Barrie Forrest attended with RAGES Coldingham, and a member from SEStran. Chairman, Tom Thorburn. They were both pleased to see so Berwickshire MSPs, John Lamont and Paul Wheelhouse, who many people from other communities giving their support the opening of the stations and a local rail service, were support and would like to thank all present for that support, as also present. well as Scottish Borders Council for arranging for MVA to MVA said that one of the alternatives they had to look at attend and finally, Reston and Auchencrow Community Council was bus travel which was instantly turned down by the for their support and hosting of the meeting. communities who made it very clear that they wanted a rail

Meet the Managers at Berwick

Barrie Forrest attended a recent “Meet the Manager” event Barrie expressed his concerns about the new franchise. He at Berwick-upon-Tweed station. These are organised by train hoped that the present East Coast services at Berwick would operator East Coast and allows customers who use their be maintained with no more reductions. Although Dunbar is service to hear what they have to say and discuss any not part of their area, he explained the need for a mid- problems and improvements. morning East Coast London train to stop at Dunbar. Present at this event were Louise Rutherford, Station The team announced that there are future plans to make Manager for Newcastle and Berwick, and Tim Thompson, Berwick station more attractive with flowers and a re- Duty Station Manager. When Barrie gave them an update on painting. RAGES, they did not know much about us! However, the Barrie would like to thank the managers for their reason became clear when it was explained that Berwick hospitality, as well as the staff at Berwick station whom he station was previously managed from personnel in Edinburgh, always finds friendly and ready to help at all times. but recently has come under management from Newcastle. After talking about RAGES which included the visit of Karen Boswell, Managing Director of East Coast, to Dunbar,

News Snippets

Our chairman has responded on behalf of RAGES to the Inter City East Coast replacement franchise consultation.

Tom also thanked Michael Moore MP for his recent support for Reston station in The Berwickshire News and asked if he could discuss with the Department of Transport and Network Rail the re-instatement of the northbound platform at Dunbar Station.

In a press request about the recent fare increases, our Chairman responded: “Rail Action Group, East of Scotland is disappointed to say the least with this latest hike in Train Fares. The purse strings of individuals budgets are 'stretched' enough without this additional financial burden being thrust upon them in these economic depressed times. Prior to this hike, we at the group received many challenges from members and public alike as to when we (the British passenger) were going to see a reduction in fares to that enjoyed by our Continental partners. This inflation bursting hike, albeit less in Scotland, is going to add much fuel to the argument of 'fairer fares' for British Railway Passengers. If Britain is to make any realistic attempt in its quest to reduce our Carbon Footprint, then the Government is going to have to invest in our Railways and not load all the cost of this investment via higher fares onto the passenger who wishes to use this greener form of travel.”

ScotRail has unveiled a new poster at North Berwick station recalling the ups and downs of the area’s railway history. The poster describes how the North Berwick Line has evolved from a Victorian steam railway to a modern commuter and leisure route. It has been designed by North Berwick in Bloom, which cares for the station’s award-winning garden as part of ScotRail’s Adopt a Station project.

Barrie Forrest, our vice-chairman and Reston representative, was interviewed for an article in the East Lothian Life magazine. The two page profile with photographs appears in the Autumn 2012 issue recently published, where it is headed “Heather Argent meets with Reston resident Barry [sic] Forrest and learns of his passion for R.A.G.E.S.”

3 New Web Site for RAGES As announced at our last annual general meeting, BT’s free web site hosting used by RAGES for over ten years is now being discontinued. As a result RAGES has decided to move the web site to a Haddington company called Cook Computing. At the same time, the web site is being given a makeover as shown below. Three columns are now used with the left-hand one being the menu to other pages; the right-hand column on the home page showing recent changes with links to the changed pages; and the centre column containing the main content. Some of the left hand menus have concealed or drop-down menus and by hovering the mouse over one of these, the menu will drop down to reveal other links as seen in the inset screenshot (below bottom left). When the mouse is hovered over a menu item, its background changes to a shade of grey. Where the mouse is hovered over words in the text which have links to other pages, the words will change to blue indicating

that a mouse-click will take you to a page with more detail on that subject. Where this is used for references to The Rages Rag, the relevant issue will open in a new window, thus preserving where you were before activating the link. The blue link for a recent change to the Dunbar section is shown on the right hand inset above. [Ed: this may not be obvious on the black and white printed copy of this newsletter] Most of the right-hand windows have photograph galleries showing images relevant to that page. When the mouse is hovered over an image, a larger version will be seen in the centre of the screen as seen on the right. A new search mechanism has been implemented and appears at the top of the left-hand column as shown above. After pressing search, the search results will appear in a new window as seen below. The search results page gives more options for further searches.

Clicking on a title in the search list will take you the relevant page. This may be another RAGES web page or a pdf file. These will not appear in a new window and by use of the “Back” button on your browser, you can return to the results page. I have reset the counter which appears below the menus, but over the past twelve years of the web site, the original counter has reached almost 9700 hits. Please look at the re-designed web site - www.rages.org.uk - and if there is anything which does not appear as you would expect or if there is something that could be added, then please e-mail [email protected]

Published by Kylemore Computing, 5 Somnerfield Crescent, Haddington, East Lothian EH41 3RW RAGES is supported by East Lothian Community Planning Partnership through the Community Engagement Small Grants Scheme 4